The Forever Lobbying Project

“Bye, Marco.” The team queuing back onto the bus was not wearing shorts and cleats but well-made suits and ties. A few rare women stood out in bright colours in the line of chemical industry bosses leaving the gigantic BASF plant in the port of Antwerp, Belgium. They are the chemical “lobby.”

On this chilly February 20, 73 chief executive officers (CEOs) from 17 sectors gathered to sign the Antwerp Declaration for a European Industrial Deal, or Industrial Deal. Almost all of them operate in the chemical sector. Europe’s most powerful lobbying organisation, the European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic), chartered a bus to transport two-thirds of its board of directors, whose members represent companies like Bayer, from Germany, and Syensqo (formerly Solvay), from Belgium.

“Marco,” the mastermind behind this smoothly-run operation just a few weeks before the European elections, is Marco Mensink, director general of Cefic, a Dutchman with a reputation as a fine strategist. Officially, the summit was all about the future of industry in Europe, destabilised by rising energy prices. But not chemicals. And certainly not PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkylated substances). However, the February 2023 publication of a European plan to ban all of these “forever chemicals,” ultra-toxic and indestructible in nature, marked the start of a lobbying and disinformation campaign of rare intensity.

After a year’s investigation coordinated by Le Monde, the 46 journalists of the Forever Lobbying Project reveal the secrets of this offensive orchestrated by Cefic, PFAS manufacturers and the plastics lobby. Fighting to prevent the banning of these substances, an alliance of polluters is working to shift the burden of environmental corruption onto society and threaten the economic balance of European nations. According to our estimates, the cost of cleaning up Europe’s pollution could exceed €2 trillion over 20 years if PFAS are not banned.

Credit: Stéphane Horel

Lobbying public authorities

In collaboration with Corporate Europe Observatory, a Brussels-based lobby watchdog organisation, the Forever Lobbying Project team has compiled thousands of pages from 184 184 freedom of information requests filed in 16 countries and to European institutions. Published by 29 media partners, our investigation sheds light on the harassment of public authorities by an armada of lobbyists to water down, or even kill, the historic draft ban. From France and Germany to Slovenia, no one seems to have escaped the grip of the “forever polluters.” Nobody, right to the top.

“Clarity.” On the sidelines of the Industrial Deal that day, Mensink repeated the word to Le Monde a dozen times in just 10 minutes: “We need clarity” on the PFAS ban proposal. Investors, he said, “need clarity about what’s going to happen on these chemicals” used in myriad applications – from the most mundane, like toilet paper, to the most technical, like gaskets in chemical plants. “I don’t think there will be a battle with industry on any PFAS,” said Mensink, as the industry is looking for “solutions” to make the ban “workable.” In the closing photo of the Antwerp summit, dressed in old pink, a woman smiles in front of a hedge of charcoal gray jackets – Ursula von der Leyen. Five months later, in July 2024, freshly reappointed as president of the European Commission, von der Leyen promised that “clarity” would be provided on PFAS.

The Green Deal, the flagship plan announced at the start of her first term at the end of 2019, seems a long way off. So does the “Chemical Strategy for Sustainability” which promised, a year later, a “toxic-free environment” by 2030. The PFAS ban proposal had built on this momentum. Shortly afterward, Germany, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Sweden set about developing a text that would affect the entire chemical “universe” of PFAS at once – over 10,000 substances. Without this, more than 4.4 million tonnes of PFAS would be emitted into the environment over the next 30 years.

In February 2023, five countries therefore proposed a “universal restriction” (uPFAS) under the European REACH regulation (Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals), based on the common characteristic of PFAS: their persistence in the environment, which has earned them the nickname “forever chemicals.” In parallel with the five-country club, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), an independent EU agency, is examining the issue.

14 industry groups in battle order

The restriction proposal would apply to all uses of PFAS, unless no alternative was available. It is accompanied by precise derogations and time-limited transition periods, of up to 12 years for the most problematic applications, such as medical implants. Despite this, the public consultation on the text resulted in a deluge of contributions. A year earlier, ECHA was overwhelmed by the 500 comments submitted during the consultation on microplastics alone. This time, the agency received 5,642. With over 100,000 pages to read for both the agency and the five countries, the process was considerably slowed down right from the start. Planned for 2025, the adoption of uPFAS is now no longer envisaged before 2026, or even 2027.

This tidal wave was no accident. Two-thirds of the contributions came from economic players. They “have swamped officials and slowed the system down,” said Vicky Cann, researcher and campaigner with Corporate Europe Observatory, a lobbying watchdog NGO. “It’s a classic tactic, designed to delay the regulatory process. Because delays multiply opportunities to weaken it and increase the risk of derailing it.”

Cann’s investigation, like that of the Forever Lobbying Project, shows unequivocally that this campaign was carefully coordinated. More than 900 comments, for example, were sent from Japan, most of them copy-pasted. The American group Chemours (formerly known as DuPont) set up a password-protected online “advocacy portal,” which provides videos, tutorials and sales pitches to its customers. The lobbying budget of this hyperactive player against uPFAS rose from €550,000 in 2017 to over €2.25 million in 2023, according to its declarations to the EU transparency register.

Industry federations from 14 sectors, including manufacturers of batteries for electric vehicles, medical devices, textiles and semiconductors, joined the battle to defend their use of PFAS, so practical because of their resistance to water, grease and the worst temperatures and conditions. Tefal (Groupe SEB), the French maker of non-stick frying pans, even recruited a former parachute commando officer to head up its crisis management and take the lead within the Federation of the European Cookware, Cutlery and Houseware Industry (FEC).

The most seasoned are the plastics and chemicals sectors. They’re the most influential, too. Operating with a dedicated unit, Plastics Europe highlights the “unique combination of properties” that PFASs provide “in demanding applications where safety and performance are a priority.” All high-performance plastics containing PFAS, fluoropolymers, should be spared the restriction and granted an exemption, the umbrella group argues. The best-known of these is Teflon (polytetrafluoroethylene or PTFE).

Apocalyptic blackmail

But the most powerful force in the field is undoubtedly Cefic, which spends over €10 million on lobbying every year and employs nearly a hundred lobbyists. Its “special uPFAS” internal organisation, which Le Monde obtained via a document access request to the French Economy Ministry, details the involvement of some 15 departments within Cefic, under the supervision of Mensink, responsible for the “strategic overview.”

Two units work for Cefic. One is dedicated to the defense of fluorinated gases, many of them PFAS used in air-conditioning systems. The other, called “FFP4EU” (FluoroProducts & PFAS for Europe), is dedicated to coordination with PFAS manufacturers and users. Spearheaded by firms such as the American companies 3M and Chemours, Japan’s Daikin and France’s Arkema, it brings together around a hundred companies and trade associations. In its internal “tips and tricks” document for contributing effectively to the public consultation, FFP4EU explains to its members how and what to respond to each question. Also listed are “DOs and DON’Ts,” such as “avoid emotions” and “avoid submitting position papers that do not contain objective data.”

This instruction is followed to varying degrees. The words “catastrophic” or “catastrophe” are used in nearly 200 lobbying documents we’ve collected. According to this selected apocalyptic blackmail, the restriction alone could “the end of the rail sector” all European rail traffic (according to the rail sector), bring “to a standstill” aviation, the space industry, security and defence (Aerospace and Defense Industries Association of Europe), or “threatens to wipe out the entire EU automotive sector” (Northvolt, Swedish lithium-ion battery manufacturer, now bankrupt). In September 2023, the president of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations even went so far as to express his “grave concern” to von der Leyen: “As things stand,” he wrote in an email, “we will be forced to cease pharmaceutical production operations in Europe.”

There are no alternatives to PFAS in most applications, the chorus of economic players repeats. That’s why banning them will have devastating consequences for the economy and our societies. When they aren’t demanding a complete withdrawal of the restriction, industrial actors are calling for more waivers, longer transition periods – up to 40 years for semiconductors – and simple adjustments to current regulations, coupled with self-regulation to control emissions into the environment.

Credit: Stéphane Horel

Germany’s about-face

Europe has seen many a lobbying campaign. But this one stands out from the usual routine of Brussels influence by its scale and coordination and above all because the political players were targeted at a very early stage in the process. First and foremost, the EU’s executive arm. With a preference for Thierry Breton, then the internal market commissioner in charge of industry. A few days after the Industrial Deal, in February 2024, the French politician sent a positive signal to the chemical sector before the plenary of the European Parliament. Then there were the members of the European Parliament, used as relays to disseminate lobbying arguments. The NGO Corporate Europe Observatory noted no fewer than 37 meetings on the subject of PFAS since 2023, two-thirds of them with representatives of economic interests.

But the political betrayal of uPFAS came from Germany. Rather accustomed to being cajoled, its powerful chemical industry got in on the act early, while federal agencies had been hard at work on the restriction from the outset. It’s hard to say exactly how and when the about-face occurred at the highest levels of government. However, at the end of September 2023, at an interministerial PFAS coordination meeting, French officials expressed surprise: “The German government made it known that a restriction embracing all PFAS would not be conceivable, which is rather paradoxical insofar as Germany had carried the project.”

A previously unpublished document, obtained by our German partners, shows that lobbying efforts convinced Robert Habeck, the economy minister and vice chancellor, as early as January 2024, even though he is the leader of the Greens. The memo refers to longer transition periods, an exemption for fluoropolymers and the possibility of continuing to produce PFAS on condition that emissions into the environment are limited.

In May, the signal came from the very top, at the French-German political meeting in Meseberg. In a joint statement, President Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor Olaf Scholz torpedoed uPFAS with barely concealed words, condemning the use of “broad product bans.” So when more than 500 industrialists wrote to Scholz in July 2024 to request the “temporary withdrawal, revision and resubmission of the dossier” of restrictions, they knew they could count on a sympathetic ear.

Dramatic turn of events

Several documents reveal that some of the German states home to chemical parks also exerted pressure on the federal government, Breton and the Commission president. “We urge you to abandon the current approach of banning all PFAS, including the harmless fluoropolymers, and then allowing the most important applications via many derogations,” wrote the governments of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg to decision-makers in July, repeating the industry’s argument word for word. Neither von der Leyen nor Breton responded to our requests for comment.

The slowness they themselves created by saturating communication channels is worrying manufacturers. They couldn’t wait for ECHA’s conclusions. “It keeps me awake at night,” lamented Cefic director Mensink at a conference on alternatives to PFAS in early November in Copenhagen, Denmark. But, he predicted, “you will probably see the new von der Leyen commission come with alternative proposals already now, which is what we’re working on with the Commission.”

The thousands of documents obtained by Forever Lobbying Project journalists bear witness to this: All this time, and despite incessant requests from lobbyists, the agencies of the five-country club and ECHA remained steadfast, set on their mission of adapting the draft restriction to the contributions received. Until November 20.

That day, ECHA published an “update” with the effect of a bombshell. Highlighting the case of fluoropolymers, the agency mentions “alternative restriction options” and for the first time outlines the possibility of maintaining PFAS production if the objective is “ensuring that emissions into the environment are minimised” is respected. This would concern uses “where evidence suggests that a ban could lead to disproportionate socio-economic impacts.” The wording, which is as ambiguous as can be, left everyone perplexed. Tatiana Santos, of the NGO European Environmental Bureau, said: “But what it shows above all is that the industrial lobbies have dodged accountability, turning the biggest pollution crisis in history into a narrow and short-term economic debate, leaving citizens to bear the staggering cost of inaction -costs that would bankrupt polluters if they were held accountable.”

Will “clarity” come from the person who promised it? In the Clean Industrial Deal that Ursula von der Leyen’s new commission is due to present in mid-February 2025, Mensink confidently states that all will be made clear.

The project received financial support from the Pulitzer Center, the Broad Reach Foundation, Journalismfund Europe, and IJ4EU.

WEBSITE foreverpollution.eu

Web design and development

Fanis Kollias (Spoovio, Greece)
Benedikt Hebeisen (Arena for Journalism in Europe, Germany)

Scrollytelling

Eurydice Bersi (Reporters United, Greece)
Dafni Karavola (Reporters United, Greece)
Georgina Choleva (Spoovio, Greece)

English editing

Craig Shaw (The Black Sea, Turkey)
⁨⁨Himanshu Ojha⁩ (The Black Sea, Turkey)

Art direction

Stéphane Horel (Le Monde, France)

Illustrations, collages and FOI art curation

Stéphane Horel (Le Monde, France)
Tarjei Leer-Salvesen (Klassekampen, Norway)
Civil servants from all over Europe

Photos

Stéphane Horel (Le Monde, France)

Drone footage

Dieudonné Pipers (RTBF, Belgium)

Website publisher

Brigitte Alfter (Arena for Journalism in Europe, Denmark)

The Forever Lobbying Project

The Forever Lobbying Project was selected for the 2026 Shortlist with PFAS: The Forever Lobbying Project.

Summary:

For over a year, the Forever Lobbying Project investigated an ongoing orchestrated lobbying and disinformation campaign by the PFAS industry and its allies, with the aims of watering down an EU proposal to ban “forever chemicals” and shifting the burden of environmental pollution onto society.

Coordinated by Le Monde, the cross-border, interdisciplinary investigation revealed for the first time the staggering cost of cleaning PFAS contamination in Europe if emissions remain unrestricted: €2 trillion over a 20-year period, an annual bill of €100 billion. In January 2026, a study commissioned by the European Commission extensively cited our findings and concluded that, depending on the scenarios considered, the cost could range from €330 billion to €1.7 trillion by 2050.

If the polluters do not pay, then who will?

Manufactured by a handful of companies, PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are a family of over 10,000 man-made chemicals. Almost indestructible without human intervention and persistent in living organisms, humans included, PFAS have been linked to a dozen illnesses.

According to scientists, regulators and civil society, the “poison of the century” has created the worst pollution crisis humanity has ever faced.

Since February 2023, a draft PFAS ban is being considered by the EU. In response, hundreds of industry players defending the interests of around 15 sectors have been lobbying decision makers across Europe to undermine, and perhaps kill, the proposal.

The team subjected the key arguments deployed by lobbyists to a “stress test”, and discovered that many of them are fearmongering, false, misleading, or potentially dishonest. The investigation described how lobbyists resort to influence tactics typical of the corporate world, used throughout the decades to defend tobacco, fossil fuels, and other chemicals and pesticides. The public debate on PFAS has now been polluted by these “Merchants of Doubt”.

The investigation built on the concept of “expert-reviewed journalism”, pioneered in 2023 with the Forever Pollution Project, this time involving 18 international academics and lawyers in Zurich, Stockholm, Toronto, Rotterdam and elsewhere, from the field of environmental chemistry to criminology.

The journalists developed the methodology to stress test the lobbying arguments with Gary Fooks (University of Bristol, UK), and the remediation costs methodology with Ali Ling (University of St. Thomas School of Engineering, US) and Hans Peter Arp (Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Norwegian Geotechnical Institute).

In collaboration with EU lobby watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory and the PFAS Project Lab, the team collected over 14,000 unpublished documents on PFAS, constituting the world’s largest collection to date on the topic. The unique trove of documents is now available to the public in the Industry Documents Library at the University of California, San Francisco, home of the famous “Tobacco Papers”, and in the Toxic Docs database of Columbia University, New York, and the City University of New York.

Credits

Team members

Stéphane Horel (Le Monde)
Raphaëlle Aubert (Le Monde)
Luc Martinon (Freelancer / Forever Lobbying Project)
Romane Bonnemé (RTBF)
Zuzana Vlasatá (Deník Referendum)
Staffan Dahllöf (Investigative Reporting Denmark)
Tiina Lundell (YLE)
Léopold Salzenstein (Arena for Journalism in Europe)
Émilie Rosso (France Télévisions)
Jose Miguel Calatayud (Freelancer)
Daniel Drepper (NDR, WDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung)
Catharina Felke (NDR)
Johannes Edelhoff (NDR)
Lea Busch (NDR)
Nadja Tausche (Süddeutsche Zeitung)
Jana Heck (WDR)
Andrea Hoferichter (MIT Technology Review Germany)
Sarah Pilz (Freelancer/Forever Lobbying Project)
Eurydice Bersi (Reporters United)
Marco Boscolo (Facta.eu)
Elisabetta Tola (Facta.eu)
Laura Fazzini (Lavialibera)
Marta Frigerio (Freelancer / L’Espresso)
Gianluca Liva (Freelancer / L’Espresso)
Anna Violato (Freelancer / L’Espresso)
Jasper Been (Financieele Dagblad)
Lisa van der Velden (Financieele Dagblad)
Bijou van der Borst (Investico)
Simon Dequeker (Investico)
Emiel Woutersen (Investico)
Tarjei Leer-Salvesen (Klassekampen)
Samo Demsar (Oštro)
Matej Zwitter (Oštro)
Antonio Delgado (DATADISTA)
Ana Tudela (DATADISTA)
Aleksandra Pogorzelska (Dagens ETC)
Daniel Värjö (Sveriges Radio)
Felicitas Flohr (SRF)
Maj-Britt Horlacher (SRF)
Cemre Demircioğlu (The Black Sea)

Zeynep Sentek (The Black Sea)
Craig Shaw (The Black Sea)
Leana Hosea (Watershed Investigations / The Guardian)
Rachel Salvidge (Watershed Investigations / The Guardian)

Editorial and overall coordination

Stéphane Horel (Le Monde) / Project & Lobbying
Raphaëlle Aubert (Le Monde) / Cost
Eurydice Bersi (Reporters United) / Cost

Website coordination

Jose Miguel Calatayud (Freelancer / Forever Lobbying Project)
Eurydice Bersi (Reporters United)
Stéphane Horel (Le Monde)

Documents and Data coordination

Luc Martinon (Freelancer / Forever Lobbying Project)
Léopold Salzenstein (Arena for Journalism in Europe)

Stress test of the lobbying arguments

Stéphane Horel (Le Monde)
Gary Fooks (University of Bristol, UK)
Jose Miguel Calatayud (Freelancer / Forever Lobbying Project)
Daniel Värjö (Sveriges Radio)
Sarah Pilz (Freelancer / Forever Lobbying Project)

Evaluation of remediation cost

Raphaëlle Aubert (Le Monde) / Cost
Eurydice Bersi (Reporters United) / Cost
Ali Ling (University of St. Thomas School of Engineering, United States)
Hans-Peter Arp (Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Norwegian Geotechnical Institute, Norway)

EXPERT GROUP

Stress test of the lobbying arguments

Gary Fooks, University of Bristol, UK

Evaluation of remediation cost

Ali Ling, University of St. Thomas School of Engineering, United States
Hans Peter H. Arp, Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Norwegian Geotechnical Institute, Norway

PFAS experts

Rob Bilott, attorney, Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, United States
Ian Cousins, Stockholm University, Sweden
Joost Dalmijn, Stockholm University, Sweden
Jamie DeWitt, Oregon State University, United States
Romain Figuière, Stockholm University, Sweden
Gretta Goldenman, Global PFAS Science Panel, Belgium
Philippe Grandjean, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
Dorte Herzke, Norwegian Institute for Air Research, Norway
Marcel Riegel, German Water Center, Germany
Martin Scheringer, ETH Zürich, Switzerland

Historical documents

Lauren Richter, University of Toronto, Canada
Lieselot Bisschop, Erasmus University of Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Sammie Verbeek, Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, The Netherlands

AI analysis

Hugo Subtil, University of Zürich, Switzerland
Juliette Jahan de Lestang, École des Mines de Paris, France

PUBLICATIONS

English:

https://foreverpollution.eu/lobbying/

Le Monde

PFAS: The astronomical cost of depolluting Europe

PFAS: How Le Monde estimated the cost of decontaminating Europe

PFAS: In France, the cost of decontamination is vastly underestimated

PFAS, a family of 10,000 ‘forever chemicals’ contaminating all of humanity

Excavating soil, changing lake water, no playing outside: PFAS-contaminated Flanders’ dystopian disaster

PFAS: How the chemical industry is derailing a ban on ‘forever chemicals’